I have friends and family who want to keep up with me and in touch, so I created this blog as a way for me to tell them all the news and stories they want to hear, and on their own time. I also hope to give others an understanding of what it means to serve in the IDF and the service those who do serve are doing.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Driving and Diving.

The program has wound down its official schedule leaving us free time, and time to get ready for the army. For me I spent most of this time getting my Israeli drivers licences. Now to do this I had to go through a lot of steps.

1. Several weeks ago I had to go to an optometrist, but not just any optometrist there is only one company which can do it. There you have your photo taken and then you get a green paper, and they also check your eyesight. This costs 50 shekels.

2. You must have a doctor sign off on your form saying you are healthy and fit to drive, this cost me 65 Shekel.

3. Then I had to go to one of two offices in Israel set up to permit you to switch your American licenses over to an Israeli one. They too sign off on your form, and its ... FREE!!

4. Then you need to take two lessons minimum, I took 3 so I would be more than ready for the test, it cost a total of 315 Shekel.

5. Then came the test which is its self 350 Shekel, and then you have to pay to use the driving schools car, which the law obligates you to use, and that was 67 Shekel.

6. Then came the test, which I PASSED!! But I had to wait till 1600 to find out the results since, once some one was failed and decided to beat his tester, so they changed the law and the results are not published till 1600 of the same day. So I got my temporary licences, and to get my permanent licence I need to mail the form in to the Israeli Motor Vehicle People, and pay 197 Shekel.

So all in all getting my licence cost: 1097 shekel, and about 9-10 Hours.

Skydiving cost 1000 shekel and is a lot ore fun, maybe I will do that next week. What can be a better way to end of my short stint of civilian life then jumping out of a perfectly good airplane?